


obscured in obsidian

by writerdragonfly



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:16:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Legend says that we are bound to our soulmates by a red string of fate. Science cannot explain the red band that loops around the left hand ring fingers of two soulmates like a tattoo the moment they meet, visible only to them. Romance has us mark our marriages with gold and silver rings as an outward display of having found our one and only.</p>
<p>Leonard Snart knows the moment his soulmate is born, and makes his choices because of it.</p>
<p>A better life does not mean a good one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArticNight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArticNight/gifts), [dragdragdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragdragdragon/gifts).
  * Inspired by [An All Too Jagged Snowflake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4172832) by [RedHead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHead/pseuds/RedHead). 



> This was sparked into creation by [this post ](http://jupitarslightning.tumblr.com/post/134103218324/i-want-a-really-obscure-coldflash-soulmate-au)by jupitarslightning, though I didn't go the expected route with it.
> 
> Please be aware, there _is_ an interaction with a prostitute in this fic, which fits the tag Leonard Snart/Original Female Character(s).
> 
> Though it does not go in the same direction, this is also somewhat inspired by the absolutely fantastic fic by RedHead, [An All Too Jagged Snowflake,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4172832/chapters/9420939) and I've marked it as such. But that fic is a billion times better and incredibly well thought out, so if you only read one Soulmate fic for this fandom, make sure you read that one. ♥

He's seventeen when his soulmate is born. He knows this by the way the hairs on the back of his neck tingle, the way his vision sharpens, the way his heart suddenly races. 

 

It's 1989, a cold and wet January that leaves him feeling chilled even after he's spent hour after hour curled up with his three year old sister under their too thin blankets in their shared bedroom.

 

He's seventeen--not quite old enough to drink or vote--and that's at least how long he'll have to wait for his soulmate, isn't it?

 

He thinks about finding love, about keeping it. About waiting, and wondering how long it will be until his father kills him.

 

About his soulmate never having a chance to find someone who is already gone.

 

He takes a long hard drag of his cigarette, doesn't quite cough in the inhale, and thinks.

 

A few minutes later, he puts it out on the arm of his father's leather chair, and packs a bag.

 

-x-

 

#   

 

 

#   

He’s twenty-seven when he first feels his soulmate. He’s just left after another stupid job for his father--a payment for his sister’s protection--and stopped by the little house on Maple for some stress relief.

 

He's got a pair of legs hiked up around his waist as he fucks into the girl, her back pressed hard against the door of the cheap little room, when it hits.

 

It's sudden and intense and painful, a screaming inside his head.

 

His soulmate is eleven years old and going through some kind of hell, he thinks.

 

He drops the girl on the mattress, trying not to throw up. His erection is gone, and the sex high vanished completely.

 

“What the fuck, dude?” The foul-mouthed prostitute asks, pulling one of the straps of her dress back up.

 

“You'll get your money, shut up.”

 

“What the fuck happened? You were--” she starts, like it's any of her fucking business, but then her features soften, “You got hit with the backlash, didn't you?”

 

“Fuck off,” he replies as he tries to calm the shaking in his hands.

 

It doesn't work.

 

“If she's pissed you're fucking a prostitute maybe you should apologize.”

 

“Maybe you should mind your own fucking business.”

 

“For fuck sake, why do I get the crazy assholes?”

 

“Your madam must fucking hate you.”

 

He's about to get decked, probably, when the screaming in his head falls to something harder, darker.

 

He barely makes it to the little condom trash can in the room when he starts throwing up.

 

He doesn't remember much after that until he wakes up handcuffed to a bed in a hospital room.

 

His father is smirking down at him.

 

-x-

 

#   

 

 

#   

He makes it to forty-one, an entire six years after his soulmate is of age, before anything changes. He's on a job, already has the expensive diamond necklace in his hands when he hears the explosion.

 

It echoes through the little museum, the carefully shifted glass cases shattering outward.

 

The liquid nitrogen tank on his back is pierced by flying debris, but he doesn't notice.

 

His vision goes just slightly blurred. Colors go a little dull.

 

The little hum at the back of his head, present since that night in the winter of 1989, just goes.

 

His soulmate must have been in this city the entire time, had to have been.

 

And now they're gone, aren't they?

 

He leaves the city at dawn, doesn't bother telling anyone.

 

Maybe he's fucked up but he always kind of wanted to fucking know who was made to be his other half.

 

-x-

 

#   

 

 

#   

He walks out on a job, leaves his partner in the middle without a care in the world.

 

His vision had suddenly gone sharper again, colors popped, the hum returned with the same intensity as he’d come to get used to.

 

He doesn't know what it means, if his soulmate had been incredibly sick, if they'd been in a coma, if they'd been _reborn_.

 

He doesn't think he could handle being forty-two years older than them, with waiting another eighteen years for a chance to feel _something_.

 

He packs a bag. He's heard there's a diamond being brought to the city in a few months anyway. He knows how to plan.

 

-x-

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn't notice when it happens. He doesn't notice when it happens because a lot had been happening, but he notices later. He notices later when he finally relaxes by himself, strips off his layers--because he's always wearing layers, he's always cold, had always been cold but especially since the night his soulmate (what, died?)--and stands under the hot spray of his shower.

 

There's a thin blood red line around his left ring finger, perfectly banded.

 

He's met his soulmate.

 

It doesn't take a genius to figure out who it had to have been.

 

Who else would fit him better than someone who would challenge him?

 

And at least he's not a fucking infant.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are two sides to this, my darklings. ♥

He was born with a soulmate. He didn't know it then--he was a tiny little infant, how could he?

 

When he was six, he got a headache so bad that he started screaming. His parents took him to the hospital, and the last thing he remembered from that day was his dad saying, "... classic sign of backlash."

 

His parents explain sometime after that--he's not really aware of how long he was in the hospital, just that they wait until he was home.

 

"...and sometimes when your soulmate is really sick or upset, you can feel it. They call it the backlash.”

 

He doesn’t really understand, not then.

 

 

 

 

 

When he’s eleven, his mom dies.

 

When he’s eleven his mom dies and his father goes to jail and he just _hurts_.

 

He doesn’t think about it affecting his soulmate, doesn’t even begin to.

 

He’s just a kid, and his mom is gone and his dad is gone and he doesn’t know _how_ to feel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every few years though, he feels them. He feels a pain in the back of his skull like a headache, a screaming _in_ him. It hasn’t been as bad as that first time, but it’s been there all the same.

 

 

 

 

When he turns and sees the explosion, the burst of the shock wave coming toward him, he takes a second to think about his soulmate.

 

He thinks about what would happen to them if he were... _gone._

 

 

 

 

 

He knows, logically, that she’s not his soulmate. He knows they both have one, that they’re both younger than them. He knows this but can’t seem to make himself care. Iris is his _life_ , his lifeline.

 

Even as he lays comatose, the altered lightning vibrating through his body, he thinks about Iris.

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t think about his soulmate for a while after that. There isn’t _time_. He wakes up to Lady Gaga and his entire life has apparently gone gaga too.

 

He’s never been _good_ at keeping track of time, and now, even with his new abilities--perhaps _especially_ now--he still isn’t.

 

So he doesn’t think about his soulmate. It doesn’t even occur to him until he sees Iris kissing Eddie, until she tells him about the red line around her finger and the one around his.

 

He’s pretty sure he doesn’t think about his soulmate until his heart is breaking and he wonders if that means _something_.

 

 

 

 

Barry’s never been the most observant person, not when it comes to himself. Schoolwork, crime scenes, things like that? Those he can catalogue and define, observe and calculate.

 

When he notices the red band around his finger, he realizes he has no idea how long it’s been there. He realizes he doesn’t _know_ who his soulmate is, doesn’t know who it _could_ be.

 

He’s met so many people since he woke up in STAR Labs, saved so many lives, done so many things. Incredible, wonderful, terrible, terrifying things.

 

He’s touched so many lives by being the Flash, in such varying degrees, that he truly _doesn’t_ know where to start. He doesn’t know _how_ to find them, he just...

 

When he was a kid, he always imagined the moment he met his soulmate as this impossibly bright and wonderful momentous thing. He thought he would _know._

 

But instead he’s staring down at his hands in the darkness of his bedroom, blinking back tears he’s trying to pretend don’t exist, and wondering why he couldn’t have been Iris’ soulmate and why he didn’t get to know _who._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["You never said that it would be this hard."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woPo9YmMl0U)
> 
> No, I didn't. ;)


End file.
